VR Company Gives Birth To Fight Game

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Flush with $2.5 million in seed money, virtual reality firm Kite & Lightning is turning its attention to battling babies.

Co-founders Ikrima Elhassan, 31, and Cory Strassburger, 41, came up with the idea for a game that pitted immortal babies against each other in a battle of narcissism, which includes taking selfies and hitting each other with selfie sticks. The game is intended to be a comedy and a parody of selfie-centric culture, said Elhassan.

“No one really makes comedic games,” he said of Bebylon Battle Royale. “And no one really does comedy in VR.”

The company, which had been operating from offices in Hancock Park, followed by a stint in Paris, plans to move to beachside offices in Santa Monica on Sept. 1. The funding round, led by Raine Ventures, also enabled the partners to hire three employees to help develop the concept and technology of Bebylon.

“Everyone on our team is multidisciplinary,” said Elhassan. “We like to hire people who are MacGyvers, who can do a bunch of different things.”

Founded in 2013 with an emphasis on gaming, Kite & Lightning has also worked with a variety of media companies to produce interactive marketing campaigns. In 2014, for example, it created a VR experience that allowed fans of NBC’s “The Voice” to assume the role of a vocal coach and interact with celebrity colleagues, including Gwen Stefani.

“These jobs were kind of a means to an end,” said Elhassan. “We were boot-strapping by doing these work-for-hire projects.”

Now, Kite & Lightning can focus exclusively on building out the Bebylon experience, which is designed for the Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and HTC Vive platforms.

“The epicenter of VR is actually not Silicon Valley,” said Elhassan, “It’s here in L.A.”

– Hayley Fox

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